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Wednesday, April 16, 2014

April A to Z - N is for New gamebooks from Megara

Hello all! Today, we are graced by the presence of Richard S. Hetley and Mikael Louys from Megara Entertainment, the company that produced Arcana Agency: The Thief of Memories and has just had massive funding for Way of the Tiger to the extent that David Walters has written a prequel, and he will also be writing book 7 with the original authors. Megara's books are very lavishly produced, which, along with excellent writing, has made them some of the most awesome gamebooks ever. Anyway - on with the interview!

Tell us about
the company name - it is the wife of Heracles. Why did you call it that?

Mikaël Louys here. I called it Megara because 10 years ago I
decided to become an expert in Japanese anime series, to watch at least one
movie or two episodes per day and to hunt for the less-known animes, watching
many in Japanese with English or French subtitles. I wanted to start with
a series that impressed me in my youth so I started with Captain Future based
on the works of Edmond Hamilton, who became later on one of my favourite SF
writers (I have read most of his books). Captain Future helps free a
tribe of frogmen enslaved by the Space Emperor on the planet Megara in one of
the episodes, and also Megara is mentioned in the series soundtrack.

I loved your
Arcana Agency book. Are there plans for any more after the Deathless
Wanderer?

Paul Gresty is busy because he is a professional English teacher and
translator, and he also likes to work on another of his creations (the very
good Orpheus Ruse which you should download and play on iOS!!). So it
usually takes him 1 year to produce something like an Arcana book, and it takes
time for us as well to design the art. We have no idea if we will do
another. I would like at some point a revamp of the original iOS prequel
(which was translated to English but not written in English at the time) but I
also would like to see Paul's ideas for another sequel after the Deathless
Wanderer.

Were you
pleased with your Way of the Tiger Kickstarter?

I was pleased, the only thing that didn't please me is that I would have
needed twice the amount we got to provide the exact Arcana treatment (luxury
paper for the inside pages) to all the 8 WotT books. I hope to find a way to do
a special treatment to book 7, though, to try to find a compromise. And
starting from book 2 and on I poured more of my own money to improve the
quality of the WotT gamebook covers. You can see the difference now since
book 2 is now available on our webstore.

Will you try
Kickstarter again?

Richard with the US branch of Megara will probably run a Kickstarter, this time
US-based, but I won't myself since I am very tired and I prefer to spend the
next years designing and selling gamebooks on our webstore instead of making
plans, running campaigns, and designing side goodies. My objective is now
to have one new gamebook available each end-of-month on our webstore (the one
for late march is Assassin!).

You are currently
doing new editions of Fabled Lands. Would you like a Fabled Lands 7 (or
more)?

Richard S. Hetley here. Mikaël is expecting his Fabled Lands 1
full colour collector's proof copy next week. Going on to Fabled Lands 7,
though, would be a different sort of challenge: completed books like Blood
Sword and the first six in Fabled Lands are relatively easy to adapt to modern
day, while new books like the prequel and sequel for The Way of the Tiger are
MUCH more involved. As stated, it would take Paul a year to make a new
Arcana Agency book; The Way of the Tiger is presenting quite a challenge to
wrangle two books in less time! So Fabled Lands 7 won't happen until and
unless enough people can commit to it.

You are also
doing new editions of Blood Sword. How are they coming along?

You need to ask this of Dave Morris. Megara is only doing the
full-colour pictures, cover, and collector's layout. For the rest any
change or update to the Blood Sword material is handled by Dave himself!
He's on it.

What advice
would you off to someone who thinks that they want to write their own gamebook?

Wow, you want advice? That's not an answer: that's an essay!
Like in that series of guest posts from David Walters (http://www.trollishdelver.com/2013/10/way-of-tiger-challenge-of-moving-from.html).
But I'd say it's essential you understand how to quantize events and
challenges, to decide things like "we need this many challenges here,
spaced this far apart." A gamebook isn't just a book.
Book-style pacing doesn't work when the reader is expecting to DO something:
the player's decisions form anchor points in the narrative and form a rhythm
for the whole experience. Paradoxically, a long and "engaging"
story is less engaging than a series of interruptions--so long as the writer
gives meaningful decisions at each interruption.

(Note I assume you already can do an even more fundamental thing:
"writing." This is an easy assumption because you can still
punch a keyboard even if you have no idea what you're writing.)

What spoils a
gamebook for you?

It's rare that a gamebook has spoiled itself for me. Game designers all
share the impetus to explore their game mechanics to the limit, and those that
fall short leave the audience hanging. A game promises a type of
experience, perhaps a choice of X useful skills out of Y possible, or perhaps a
"thinking outside the box" theme with unusual decision
mechanics. But suppose there is exactly one set of X that does any good,
and the remaining (Y - X) options do nothing. Suppose that the author
"thought outside the box" in section 1, but then had nothing new to
say in sections 2 through 400. Then there was a promise of a meaningful
experience but it simply didn't happen.

(Note again that I overlook the fundamental thing called
"writing." I'm sure that a book that was written terribly could
also disappoint me, but you can still make a good game out of broken
narrative.)

What makes a gamebook stand out for you?

Probably the standouts are those that make real consequences for player
actions. There is only so much space in a few pages to do so. Take
the example of in-game "money." With limited space, the
alternatives can be painfully discrete: did you earn 15 gold pieces or didn't
you? If those are the only options, then it is meaningless that "the
bridge toll is an unreasonable 5 gold pieces," because the consequences
here are binary (and the word "unreasonable" might as well not have
been written). However, if the game grants multiple ways to earn money
and multiple things to do with it, then the player's actions have
meaning. The player can plan. The player feels like the world is
real and full of consequence.

What future
projects do you have that you can talk about?

Mikaël and Megara Europe may get to unveil a secret project outside of
Orb that has been in negotiation for 3 years now! It would be the
translation of a foreign RPG to English, but we can't tell you yet which
one! It was popular in the 80's . . . And Richard in the USA is
working very hard on editing The Way of the Tiger, but is generally open to
running another Kickstarter once it's all done, as mentioned above.
Kickstarter for what? Well, still working on that.

What is your
wish for gamebooks?

Mikaël wishes that many new gamebooks were written this year or
converted to new formats!! Richard knows better than to expend valuable
wishes, particularly when unaware of the genie's disposition.